Alex Cunningham, MP for Stockton North, has backed a Prostate Cancer UK initiative to ensure that men with prostate cancer receive the best possible care and support regardless of where they live throughout the UK.
Prostate Cancer UK’s ‘Quality Checklist: Your Standards of Care’ outlines what support men with prostate cancer should expect to receive from the health service through every step of their treatment journey. The checklist has been produced following a thorough and wide-ranging consultation and aims to support men from the point of their diagnosis through to the end of their life – helping them to know what information, care and support they should expect and demand, based on the experiences of other men who have had the disease.
Prostate Cancer UK has produced the Quality Checklist because surveys show that, despite recent improvements in treatments, wide regional variation in the experience of care that men with prostate cancer receive still persists. The organisation is also concerned that NICE’s quality standard for prostate cancer has been delayed until the end of 2014.
Alex said:
“Prostate cancer is the most common cancer in men. It is incredibly important that we do all we can to ensure all men affected by the disease get the care and support they need. I am therefore delighted to endorse Prostate Cancer UK’s Quality Checklist, and call on the relevant bodies to ensure it is adopted as soon as possible to help all men who are diagnosed with the disease.”
Dr Sarah Cant, Director of Policy and Campaigns at Prostate Cancer UK, said: “It is unacceptable that the quality of support experienced by men with prostate cancer varies across the country. In order to address this we hope that our Quality Checklist is widely adopted. Men with prostate cancer deserve the best, and we’re absolutely determined that’s exactly what they are going to get.”
